It looks like the Paramount theme park proposed for Murcia, Spain has received the green light from the money guys and will immediately begin construction. This park is thought by some to be a credible competitor to the Disneyland Paris Resort. ~~Rick

We have told you before about the Paramount Park project proposed for Murcia, Spain. Apparently the funds to construct the park have been found, because the project was presented at Fitur, the big International Tourism Fair in Spain. Brand new exciting 3D renderings were shown as well as stunning high definition artwork. What follows will give you a better idea of how this Paramount park will look when it opens at the end of 2015.

The project, will include the construction of an area called Lifestyle Center with condos and office buildings, leisure gardens, seven hotels from 3 to 5 star. Also included is a casino, mall, dining and night life areas, business and convention center, an auditorium and exhibition hall for cultural events, etc. Today we will concentrate on the part of the project that interests us the most, i.e., the theme park itself. It will include shows and rides, some of them borrowing themes from famous movies. Let’s start with a great bird eye view of the proposed park.

The park will include five lands, so let’s start by the entrance, “Paseo Paramount”, and the first 3D renderings.

Guests will enter the park and this land by going through a recreation of the legendary gate of Paramount Studios in Hollywood. The entrance plaza will feature a fountain followed by the typical shopping street and services, and also direct access to the park for hotel guests that stay at the Paramount Park Hotel.

A large central square will connect the other lands – on the right is access to the Plaza Futura, the park’s “Tomorrowland” – and on the left is Adventure City. Also in the square will be the first attraction, a cyberkinetic fountain which will use lights, music and water effects to create a great show to welcome visitors.

Guests will also find one of the main attractions of the park, “Paramount Live”, a large auditorium with shows and musicals inspired by famous Paramount movies. Finally, it will also be the site of the “Festival of Paramount Walk”, a parade with the main characters from Paramount which at night will become a light show.

The large central square overlooks a lake with stunning views of the rest of the park. A small garden promenade serves as a shortcut to The Enchanted Forest and Rango’s West lands.

“Adventure City” is the next land on the left, and here we have 3D renderings and a map of the land. It might look small but in fact includes a large space for future expansion. A large roller coaster is planned for this area.

Adventure City will be one of the most interesting lands and should prove popular with guests as they will find areas inspired by Grease, Mission Impossible and The Godfather movies.

One of the E-Ticket attractions of the park will be here, Mission Impossible 3D. Visitors will be immersed in an espionage adventure moving across highways, flying over rooftops and through multiple zones with flames, explosions and 3D action. The technology will be similar to the Spiderman ride at Universal parks, with the improvements that have occurred in recent years on this type of attraction. The Paramount team completely designed the storyboard of this attraction.

Unfortunately, a previously announced attraction dedicated to the Titanic has been cancelled. It was a kind of walk through museum (see rendering below) and the concept didn’t prove attractive enough. It is replaced by an attraction based on the Mission Impossible movie series. This attraction will use new technologies allowing visitors to interact with their smartphones and participate in the “impossible missions” in which they will be involved.

Another attraction found in this area will be “Greased Lightnin’ Bumper Cars”. These will be bumper cars for adults and will be set in a gas station of the 50′s with colored lights to evoke the atmosphere of the movie Grease.

Adventure City will also include two restaurants, the first being the Osteria Corleone, the famous restaurant of The Godfather trilogy featuring a terrace overlooking the lake. The second restaurant is inspired by Grease, and will re-create a typical American restaurant.

Rango’s West seems to be the “Frontierland” of the park, but with a sense of humor: The Far West will be the main theme of this world with a combination of performances, shops, rides and restaurants.

A Western land in theme parks is classic but Paramount wanted to give this version a twist. It will be designed as a small village in the American West with everyday elements of our lives like barrels, bottles, jars, etc. that have been transformed by insects in their homes and buildings. This way the visitor will have the feeling of being reduced to the size of a bug and will be constantly surprised to see everyday objects under a different light.

Rango’s West will be the largest area of the park. The first major attraction that guests will find is “Spirit of the West”, a mine train which looks like a standard mine train coaster from Vekoma, but it seems that no deal has been signed yet with a manufacturer. We’re hoping that in the end we don’t end up with an off-the-shelf ride.

Continuing along the main street of this western village guests will find “Rango’s Rootin’ Tootin’ 4D Spectacular”, a 4-D theater movie. Rango the sheriff will be the main character in “How the West Was Sung”. Visitors will help the character to restore order in the city. The 4D scenes will bring the guests to a world filled with legendary characters from the Paramount western movies.

In the back of Rango’s West, guests will find the second major attraction of the land, “Rango’s Ragin’ Rapids”. This will be a fast raft ride through the Wild West of Rango. Riders will have to dodge obstacles that they find along the way, or end up completely wet at the end! The mine train may cross over the rapids at some point, but the feasibility of this has yet to be determined.

On the island created in the center of the rapids, guests will find the “Oasis Play Zone”, a small playground including water games as well as slides and other attractions.

“The Enchanted Forest” will be a land dedicated to magic and fantasy.

The area is divided into three distinct areas. Sleepy Hollow is the first and is inspired by the popular Tim Burton movie. Just like in the Tim Burton movie, Sleepy Hollow will be a grim but fanciful place that will reflect the atmosphere of mystery and terror of the film. Upon entering, guests will see the dead tree with the unmistakable Tim Burton style beside which they will find the 3D Sleepy Hollow show. Projection effects will be mixed with real actors.

The village of Stormhold is Enchanted Forest’s second area. This is an alternate world where magic reigns, especially witches, and is inspired by the movie Stardust, a fantasy adventure movie that provides the basis of a land dedicated to the wizards and witches that kids love so much. The first thing that guests will encounter is a carousel with fanciful characters, then at the village of Stormhold they will find a theater with interactive shows related to magic “Wizard Workshop”.

The third area is called Spiderwick Chronicles. Leaving the town of Stormhold, guests will enter the forest itself with a mythology and fantasy created for The Spiderwick Chronicles. The movie’s story focuses on a forest full of magical creatures from fairies to evil ogres and other characters, a magical world created for the film which is now coming to the theme park. Among the attractions that appears here is “Griffin Flyer”, a children’s roller coaster, a large hedge maze, a small children’s theater and a boat ride through a magical world filled with fairies, “Fairytale Journey”.

The major attraction of the land is “The Spiderwick Chronicles: Magical Mayhem”, an interactive dark ride where visitors armed with magic wands will enter the enchanted forest and kill the ogre who wants to destroy the magical world. Nearby, guests will find the Spiderwick family mansion that appears in the movie.

A hotel will be located in this area and have theming based on magic. This hotel will have direct access to the park. According to the creative guys, they wanted to play a lot with water and vegetation in this area, to cool Murcia’s often warm climate. The land will be, according to them, the crown jewel due to its landscaping and theming.

Next up is “Plaza Futura”, the “Tomorrowland” of this Paramount Park with exciting new 3D renderings!

Plaza Futura “will be dedicated to science fiction and to that uncertain future that many movies have described, with thrilling outer space adventures”.

Plaza Futura will employ the very strong Star Trek franchise, attracting fans of the Star Trek movies from all over the world. Plaza Futura is designed as a large retro-futuristic square in which guests will find the first Star Trek-based attraction, Starfleet Spain Recruiting Center, a 3D simulator ride set in a recruitment center in which guests will experience adventures in outer space.

The next attraction will be a big roller coaster in which visitors will ride aboard spectacular trains equipped for all kinds of motions. “Warp Speed Coaster” will go up to 100 feet high, with a top speed of more than 62 mph and will be a half mile long with loops and even an underground section.

Guests will also find a War of the Worlds restaurant but, ultimately, they didn’t find a concept for a War of the Worlds attraction. The indoor spinning coaster is also cancelled, so the park will open with 3 roller coasters: children, family and adult coasters.

The project is so extensive and so much more than a theme park, the Premursa company has released a PDF file (from which the artwork here was obtained), and you can download it HERE. Work on the park is already underway with a budget of 390 million euros. Premursa is investing $135 million and banks are financing $175 million. The park should be ready for an opening in late 2015 or early 2016!

Here’s a short video shot at the Premursa booth during the Fitur International Tourism Fair at the end of January where guests could see the model and 3D presentation.

Pictures: copyright Premursa – Paramount Parks

About Rick Wright

Rick has been a long term MiceChat author and co-founder of the Weekend Update. You will often find Rick in the position of "Greeter" at official events due to his warm and welcoming spirit.
If you've got photos, news or trip reports to share, Rick would love to hear from you: [email protected]

Looks like a an exciting project. I particularly like Plaza Futura, perhaps Disney should watch this space for ideas on how to rebuild Tomorrowland. Rango’s West looks like a hoot and a half and The Enchanted Forest looks to me to be really exciting but I am wondering about some of the movies they’ve decided to base attractions on. I LOVE Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow I think it is a modern classic but Spiderwick and Stardust? While they were enjoyable fantasy films they hardly have the pulling power of some of the more classic fantasy films in the Paramount vault, Harry Potter they are not. What will be interesting to see is if it is successful in Spain will Paramount bring it to the USA to compete with Disney and Universal, it will certainly have a lot of pulling power with attractions based in Sleepy Hollow and Star Trek the latter having easily a fan base the size of Star Wars. I love the concept of combining a retro sci fi look with the ultra sleek lines of Star Trek. Only 2 years to build all this too, Paramount must have been watching Universal lately. All in all though an exciting project I hope to read a lot more about here on Micechat.

Malin

If this gets built in Spain then I would visit it over Disneyland Paris. Being from the UK I am starting to get tired of the 11-12 hour flights to Tokyo or the 9-10 hour flights to visit Disneyland. I want a shorter flight but something worth visiting… The Paramount Park might be the answer.

doppio

The competition is getting better and better. Makes Disneyland’s Tomorrowland look more like
the ghetto.

Park Hopper

As much as I’m always happy to welcome a new theme park into the world, especially one of high quality as this one appears to be. To me, the whole place seems to have a been-there-done-that feel to it. It’s as if they’ve taken park ideas from Disney and park ideas from Universal, and melded them with their own franchises to produce a theme park. There’s really nothing ground breaking or exciting here—unless you’re really in love with any of the franchises they’ll be featuring.

I’m a Star Trek fan from way back, but it looks like they’ll be using the current movie series to base their attraction on, and I’m less of a fan of these. The rest of the featured franchises hold little or no interest for me, so there’s not much incentive for me to cross an ocean. However, if I were going to be in Spain anyway, I’m sure I’d visit.

I’m glad they’re building this in Spain rather than Orlando because it will stand out in Spain, where as in Orlando, without the pulling power of a franchise like Harry Potter, it would just fade into the background as a lesser version of Universal.

Malin

The Theme Park competition in Europe is abysmal. Disneyland Paris is our most visited Resort for a reason. No one up to now has challenged them like Universal is doing in the States and Japan. We need this Park because it would be a wake up call to the other parks in the region. Might also push Disney into actually investing more into it’s Paris Resort. It might also have an impact Brit’s travelling to Orlando. One of the reasons we skip Paris is because of the cost’s. A Disney/Universal style park with a warm climate and cheaper flights with an easier to reach destination could also really impact the Orlando Parks. Britain is after all one of the biggest international markets for central Florida.

bkroz

The odd thing is, when Paramount owned parks here in the U.S., they had a few actually-successful themed attractions – a family roller coaster themed to “The Italian Job,” an incredible dark ride based on “Tomb Raider,” and a sci-fi land / highly-themed indoor launched coaster based on The Outer Limits. Each of those franchises could support their own full lands!

So to see these properties they’ve chosen to go with… it’s almost laughable.

One land has a Mission: Impossible dark ride, Grease bumper cars, and a Godfather restaurant? I mean… what?

And a Fantasyland based on three completely-forgotten movies? Were the people really clamoring for a Stardust-themed land, or a Spiderwick Chronicles dark ride? Granted, I’m not overly familiar with what Paramount has licensing rights to, but could Spiderwick Chronicles really have been their best? Same with Rango. I mean, sure it did fine at the box office and was critically well-received, but in my mind Rango is about as present in pop culture as Avatar… And at least Avatar has sequels on the way.

To me, this is a bit of a shame. I don’t doubt that the park will be beautiful and impressive looking, but as it is I don’t think I’d go out of my way to visit it. We’ll see, I guess, but I can’t imagine people rushing the gates to get to a Mission: Impossible ride.

Star Trek is really the only big name that’s given its own breathing room, and that amounts to a Star Tours ride and a big, tall, outdoor coaster… oh, and a War of the Worlds… restaurant? Oh my.

ChrisFL

I agree, but for a park in Spain its probably ok. The other fact, is that there have been so many “properties”, themes, etc. covered by the other major parks over the years, it isn’t easy to be completely original…especially if your park is movie-studio themed as Paramount is.

Larry Parker

Competition always spurs greater effort. Hope this serves as a wake up call to Disneyland’s Tomorrowland-Long overdue for a redo!

toonaspie

They’re cutting out Titanic? That was one of the park’s highlights at least to me. Maybe if the park ever comes to the states it will be a bigger success as the film was.

robbiem

Interesting. Any new parks in Europe have to be welcomed. While it looks like it has a heavy dose of magic Kingdom style theming in some of its choice of lands it looks different enough to stand out on its own in Spain, it certainly looks better than WDS, the worst Disney park ever.

Does anyone know if Paramount are still developing their UK park outside London, if that has some big gun rides things in Europe could get interesting and we might see DLP finally up their game

Rogermeyers

Everything looks fairly uninspired to be perfectly honest. If they are spending soo much money,budget is clearly not the issue, rather they got a fairly mediocre concept/theme park designer and are running with fairly lacklustre looking ideas. You can’t think of a better ride/area to fit Star Trek or Mission Impossible?
Hire some Imagineers/Universal guys and build something great!

I think it might be necessary to remember this is being built in Spain, just because a franchise is or isn’t popular in the USA market doesn’t necessarily mean is was or wasn’t popular in Spain. Europe is a VERY different market to the USA, Australia or even Britain just as the Asian market is. I would imagine they thought carefully about what they were going to invest billions of dollars into before actually doing it. Also this will be phase one so some of the cool sounding attractions mentioned in other posts here might end up in the park but if they were as good as stated then there has to be a good reason they are not using them at this stage and my guess it is the market place.
I have just finished reading Jim Henson’s new biography and one of the things that really surprised me was that The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth bombed at the box office in the USA. I saw both at the cinema, when they were originally released, here in Australia and the theatres were packed every session for weeks. In the biography there is also talk about the success of these 2 films in the European market, it was incomprehensible to me that either of these films would take years to find an audience in the USA. Stardust always struck me as being very European in style so perhaps that is why they have chosen to use it. I completely understand why they are using Rango and as for using the new vision of Star Trek it is totally logical to use the reboot of the franchise, after the panning the last couple of Next Generation films and Enterprise received why wouldn’t you use the highly successful reboot.
I know some of this contradicts some of what I said in my first post but I have had time to think about it since then.